THE DOPPLER EFFECT
When Cloud Technology Partners was
founded in 2010, cloud was still relatively new
to the market. We saw a few early adopters
(think Capital One) that went all in on public
cloud early, but the majority of our work was
private cloud implementations or small proof
of concept environments on AWS.
Fast forward nine years and public cloud has
gained unprecedented momentum. Amazon
Web Services’ annual user conference, AWS
re:Invent, grew from 5,500 attendees in 2012
to over 50,000 attendees this past fall. Azure
was up 74 percent in Microsoft’s Q1 2019
earnings. Google Cloud Platform was up 29
percent YOY after its Q3 2018 earnings. Cloud
security myths have been put to rest. The
cloud’s cost-consumption model and speed-
to-agility are too enticing to ignore. And
developers now expect faster, easier access to
resources for continuous innovation.
Yet, among all our clients’ cloud-first man-
dates, the hybrid IT model has remained. In an
effort to achieve corporate goals and objec-
tives, organizations continue to run select
workloads on-premises for various reasons,
from security concerns to latency require-
ments. Even the public cloud providers them-
selves are acknowledging that a hybrid strat-
egy is the reality for many enterprise
customers. Microsoft first recognized this in
early 2016 with its release of Azure Stack;
Google Cloud teamed up with Cisco mid-2018
for the release of their Hybrid Cloud Platform;
and most recently, and maybe most surpris-
ingly, AWS announced AWS Outposts to bring
its native services on-premises.
Does this mean the public cloud has reached
its peak? Not at all. Moreover, this is an
acknowledgment that customers want to get
the value of a cloud operating model no mat-
ter where it is — on-premises or in the public
cloud.
Our goal at CTP is to help our clients create
more efficient IT — to establish the right mix
of public, private, and traditional IT infrastruc-
ture to achieve their business goals. But how
do you assemble the right mix?
In this Doppler Quarterly edition, we look at
how organizations can start to identify their
right mix solution by answering a few ques-
tions. How do I accurately assess what appli-
cations and workloads should be in the cloud
versus on-premises? What is my objective for
migration: cost, speed to market, market dif-
ferentiation? How do I design for portability in
the cloud? What governance models do I
need to consider in a hybrid world? How can I
avoid vendor lock-in?
There is no exact formula that suits every cli-
ent. However, providing consistency in your
vetting process and decision tree for data and
application placement will be critical to your
success. A cloud-first strategy does not mean
cloud-only. A transparent view into your
entire IT landscape can help ensure that you
are getting the optimum cost, speed and effi-
ciency advantages across your environments.
Bruce Coughlin
Chief Executive Officer
WINTER 2019 | THE DOPPLER | 1